The Armour of Achilles (17 page)

T
welve days had passed since the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles. The Phthian prince had not left the Myrmidon camp in all that time, nursing his anger against the King of Men and refusing to be appeased by the noble Greeks who visited him. When even Great Ajax – Achilles’s cousin and closest friend, after Patroclus – could not persuade him to put aside his dispute, a deep concern began to spread through the army. Some feared that without their greatest bulwark against the Trojans, Hector’s fighting prowess would defeat the Greeks and drive them back into the sea. But Agamemnon was determined to show them they did not need Achilles and had determined that he himself would lead them to victory.

As the sun climbed towards noon and Hector was mustering the Trojans and their allies for war, the armies of the Greek nations poured over the causeways that crossed the ditch around their camp and formed up on the plains beyond. The grassy plateau where large flocks of sheep and goats still grazed was already beginning to dry in the heat of spring and the movement of countless sandalled feet, hooves and chariot wheels raised a dust cloud that was visible from the high towers of Troy. At their head was a screen of archers, whose role in the coming battle would be to drive away their Trojan counterparts and then break up the ranks of enemy spearmen with their deadly fire. Following them was a long line of two-horsed chariots, each carrying an armoured nobleman and his driver. These were the elite warriors of the vast Greek army who would leap down from their chariots and lead their countrymen into the heart of battle, remaining there until the day was won or death claimed them.

Behind the chariots were file upon file of spearmen, the bronze of their armour and weapons glinting in the sunlight as they marched. The banners of the different kings fluttered and snapped over their heads: the lion of Mycenae tearing out the throat of a stricken deer; the white maiden of the Spartans, which Menelaus had chosen to represent Helen; the Cretan galley in full sail; the golden fox of Argos; the blue dolphin of Ithaca; the serpent of Locris; the goddess Athena for Athens; and many more. Only the eagle and serpent of the Myrmidons was missing.

In the foremost ranks of each nation were the professional soldiers, the men whose experience, courage and loyalty could be relied upon by their leaders. Every man was equipped with a bronze or leather cuirass, a plumed helmet and greaves tied around woollen gaiters. On the left arm he carried a broad, oxhide shield shaped like the moon a few days from its zenith, while in his right hand were two long spears with socketed bronze points. Should these break or be lost, each warrior also carried a sword at his side and a dagger in his belt, weapons which came into their own during the close and bloody work of hand-to-hand combat.

The professional soldiers were supplemented by equal numbers of well-armed mercenaries, but the bulk of the army was provided by the peasantry of Greece with their scavenged armour and weapons. Among them were the most recently arrived drafts, who remained inexperienced and poorly equipped. These were pushed out front with the skirmishers or herded into the rearmost ranks of the battle order, to live or die as the Fates dictated.

Though the nobles would claim the glory, it was the ferocity and nerve of these thousands of spearmen that would decide the outcome of the day’s battle – that and the will of the gods. But the heavy infantry were slow and unwieldy, and if their flanks could be turned the fight would be lost. For this reason, hundreds of spear-wielding cavalry swarmed at each end of the battle line, ready to drive off attacks from the enemy or, if the opportunity arose, exploit gaps in their opponents’ defences. Mounted on horses that had been captured and trained from the wild herds that roamed the plains, the riders carried no shields and relied on the speed of their animals for protection. They were of little use attacking solid lines of spearmen, but against an undefended flank where shields and spears could not easily be turned to face them they were deadly.

As the army filed out on to the plain, the men looked northeast and saw the distant wisps of woodsmoke that marked the great city of Priam. There, in front of the walls of Troy, many of them would die before the sun sank below the far edge of the Aegean. Like thousands of their comrades before them, their souls would be ushered down to the Chambers of Decay to spend an eternity mourning the sweet joys of the life they had lost. It was a terrible fate and many shook with fear at the thought of it, but there were just as many who faced it with grim anticipation. These knew that death was the one certainty in life, and yet to die fighting was to reach out towards immortality. For glory and fame could only be found in the thick of battle, and glory and fame were the only way a man’s name could live beyond his mortal existence.

Odysseus stood in his chariot and stared through the heat haze towards the edge of the plateau, beyond which were the fords of the Scamander and the wide plain where battle would soon be joined.

‘Keep them steady,’ he snapped as Eurybates struggled to control the team that pulled their chariot.

The beasts snorted with excitement, shaking their heads defiantly while Eurybates leaned back on the leather reins and cursed at them. Odysseus looked around at the other drivers manoeuvring their chariots into place at the head of each army, some shouting at their charges and laying their whips across their backs, while others encouraged their animals with calming words and loud clicks of their tongues. To his left was Eperitus, squinting in his chariot against the fierce north wind that haunted the plains of Ilium. Like Odysseus, he wore his shield across his back to leave both hands free for his spears, while relying on his helmet and breastplate to ward off enemy weapons. His driver, Arceisius, wore only a light corslet over his woollen tunic and a bronze cap to protect his head. As he had but one role in the battle – to steer the chariot into and out of danger – he carried no weapons other than the sword that hung from a baldric beneath his left arm.

A little further on were King Menestheus and his Athenians, proud and numerous in their bright armour. Beyond them the hordes of Mycenae were led by Agamemnon, standing in his golden chariot with Talthybius at the reins. After sacrificing a five-year-old ox to Zeus, he had taken his place with much fanfare at the head of his troops. He wore the breastplate Cinyras had sent him and a helmet with twin crests of bronze and a horsehair plume that fell down to the middle of his back; his round shield was covered with concentric rings of bronze, boasting the shaped image of a gorgon’s head at its centre. On either side of the king were two dozen chariots carrying the nobles of his personal bodyguard, who had swapped their heavy, ceremonial armour for light cuirasses and the smaller shields favoured by the rest of the army. Next to the Mycenaeans were the Spartans, with Menelaus at their head. His bearded jaw was set firm and his eyes were narrowed on the smoke trails of Troy, eager to rejoin battle and fight for the return of his queen. Barely visible through the dusty haze beyond him were the chariots of Diomedes and a dozen other lesser kings.

Odysseus turned his head to the right, where the chariots of Nestor of Pylos, Idomeneus of Crete, Tlepolemos of Rhodes and the rest of the Greek leaders were arrayed, each one surrounded by their noble retainers and backed by vast armies of spearmen, their different standards streaming out in the wind. Nestled between the hordes of Pylos and Crete was the small force from Salamis, headed by the Ajaxes and Teucer. Little Ajax, whose Locrian archers were among the advance screen of skirmishers, had positioned his chariot next to his larger namesake and was looking around himself with an evil glare, eager to join battle and spread misery among the unfortunate Trojans. In contrast, Teucer twitched nervously behind the curved panel of his own chariot, hating to be even just a few paces away from the protection of Great Ajax’s towering shield, which he would shelter behind in battle while picking targets for his bow.

His half-brother, meanwhile, stood motionless in his chariot, glowering impatiently towards the north-east as he awaited the order to advance. The handrail of the chariot, which was just below hip height for most men, barely reached the middle of Great Ajax’s thigh, while the spoked wheels and the oak axle seemed to sag beneath his weight. Only the largest and strongest horses in the whole army could pull him for any distance, and as he stood in the car behind them he looked like the oversized effigy of a god being paraded for a religious festival. His great shield was slung over his back by a leather strap, and of all the nobles in the Greek army only Eperitus had a shield of the same cumbersome, antiquated style. But whereas Eperitus’s shield had belonged to his grandfather and was retained out of a sense of respect and nostalgia, Ajax preferred the older design because nothing else was capable of covering his massive body.

With Achilles’s withdrawal from the fighting, the hopes of the Greeks now rested on Ajax. No man could claim a greater sense of pride or thirst for glory after Achilles himself, and the army looked on him with soldierly adoration, envying his brute strength and the terrible fury with which he would destroy every enemy in his path. The only Trojan who had ever defeated him was Tecmessa, daughter of King Teuthras. After sacking Mysia in the early years of the war and slaying Teuthras, Ajax had fallen in love with Tecmessa and she had borne him a son, whom Ajax had named Eurysaces after his own shield.

Of all other Trojans, it was said that only Hector would be able to withstand Ajax in battle. Ten years before, the Greeks had expected to sweep to victory, crushing their enemies with ease and taking their city within months, despite the prophecies of Calchas. But so far Calchas had been right, and the reason for their frustration – other than the great walls of Troy – was Hector. His reputation among the Greeks as a tactician, a commander and a fighter had grown with each year of the war, and though Ajax had often boasted that he would seek Priam’s eldest son on the battlefield and send his ghost to Hades, few shared his confidence.

The army was now assembled and with a great shout Agamemnon raised his sword in the air and thrust the blade in the direction of Troy. Thousands of voices cheered in response and, within moments, the multitude of archers, chariots, spearmen and cavalry were moving. At Odysseus’s command, Eurybates gave a flick of the reins and the chariot lurched forward. Odysseus glanced at the line of Ithacans behind him, then across at Eperitus, who met his gaze and nodded. A grim resolve was in his eyes, a determination and severity that Odysseus understood and shared, though for different reasons. Whereas Eperitus was preoccupied with finding his father and ending the disgrace that had haunted him for so much of his life – and which had been made all the more acute since they had faced each other at Lyrnessus – Odysseus’s thoughts were on hastening the end of the war and returning home to his family. The news from Ithaca had refocused his mind, though his instincts told him there would be much suffering and death before he saw Penelope again.

The army moved and the ground trembled beneath its collective weight, sending more dust into the warm, windswept air. Few could see beyond the thick haze, but from his raised position Odysseus watched the green pastureland roll away beneath the wheels of his chariot and the smoke trails of Troy growing ever nearer. It was a long march from the safety of the Greek camp to the raised mound on which Priam’s city had been built, but eventually, as the sun passed its noon position and started to roll westwards, Troy’s gleaming white towers and sloping battlements came into view, larger and grander than anything Odysseus had ever seen in his native Greece. At its highest point was the citadel of Pergamos, a fortress within a fortress, its palaces and temples protected by an inner ring of thick walls where armed guards kept an unfailing watch. Further down, sweeping southwards from the citadel like a half-formed teardrop, was the lower city. Here rich, two-storey houses slowly gave way to a mass of closely packed slums, where many hundreds of people had once lived in discomfort and squalor. Now, though, they were forced to share their meagre homes with thousands of soldiers drawn from across the vassal towns and allied states of Priam’s empire.

As the Greeks topped the ridge that marked the edge of the plateau, the ground fell away towards the plain of the Scamander, where the winter floods had receded to leave a rich carpet of clover, parsley and galingale. It was a beautiful sight in the spring, but they took little notice of the white-and-yellow-flowered water meadows or the twisting river, with its high banks lined with elms, weeping willows and tamarisk bushes. For the armies of Troy and her allies had crossed the fords and were now arrayed in their thousands across the marshy pastureland at the bottom of the slope. It was as if the Greeks had been met by a great mirror, in which throngs of archers preceded hundreds of chariots, followed, in their turn, by deep ranks of spearman and flanked on both sides by dark, threatening masses of cavalry. Even Odysseus, who had fought in every battle since the start of the war, had never seen such a force of Trojan men and horses before. It seemed to him that every fighting man in Ilium had been disgorged from the gates of Troy, intent on meeting the invaders and throwing them back into the sea.

Agamemnon raised his hand and, up and down the line, kings and their officers shouted for their men to halt. The relentless tramping of thousands of feet and hooves suddenly stopped, to be followed by an unnatural hush that seemed to roll down the long slope and silence everything before it. Though seagulls screeched overhead and horses whinnied nervously, not a man spoke. Even the women and children watching from the parapets of the city did not dare to break the silence as the two armies faced each other. Then a single chariot sprang forward from the Trojan lines, cutting a channel through the screen of archers and slingers and dashing up the slope towards the Greeks. Before it had covered half the distance separating the opposing skirmishers, who were barely within bowshot of each other, the driver steered aside and brought the chariot to a halt. In the car behind him was a tall warrior with broad shoulders and great, knotted muscles on his arms and legs. Beneath the folds of his black cloak he wore a coat of scaled armour that reached to his thighs, while on his head was a tall helmet that flashed in the sunlight. A black plume flowed down from a socket at its peak and the leather cheek-guards framed a face that was stern, fearless and menacing, promising only suffering and death as he stared disdainfully at the ranks of invaders.